Mmmmm, Hot Chocolate!

 In the interest of full disclosure, the pictures for the next few weeks will be from albums over the past year because my trusty camera bit the dust.  I am going to have to send it off to be repaired...in the meantime, I am going to fill in with 'blast from the past' pictures.  This picture of Trigger was taken last December.  He knows that he is not supposed to be on the furniture, but he must have thought that I was safely downstairs so he settled himself down for a little nap...

I just heard that the 'high' for tonight is going to be 19 degrees, which will be a virtual heat wave compared to the cold that we have had over the past few days.  I kept watching the weather channel yesterday...and it didn't budge much past 12 degrees during the day.  I think we had between two to four inches of snow.  Big, thick and heavy wet snow.

My husband was working out in the cold and the snow on Friday, and when he got home he said that he had been thinking all day about having a cup of hot chocolate.  I rummaged around the pantry for a sleeve of instant hot chocolate, and came up empty handed BUT I did have some Hershey's cocoa and decided to make hot chocolate the old fashioned way...the way my mother used to make it over 50 years ago.

You know, I had forgotten what real hot chocolate tasted like, and smelled like.  I had gotten used to the quick and easy stuff that tastes like warmed over chocolate milk...but it really only takes a few minutes to make the real stuff, the good stuff...which is made that much better with a dollop of marshmallow and some whipped cream.  

The recipe is:  1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa, a dash of salt (my sister says not to forget the salt because it brings out the flavor of the chocolate), 1/3 cup of hot water, 4 cups of milk and 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract.

Mix sugar, cocoa and salt in saucepan; stir in water.   Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils; boil and stir 2 minutes.  Stir in milk and heat but DO NOT BOIL.  Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

This will make 6 servings.  There is also a microwave recipe on the box for single servings.

Hopefully it won't be this cold that much longer, and we can enjoy Fall.  But until then I plan to settle in with a good book and some real hot chocolate!  DLB